March 16, 2016

"Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities. If this were poker, which hand looks stronger to you for a national election?"

(Note: I took 2 commas out of the quote in the post title. He says interesting things but sometimes his punctuation blurs his otherwise nice and clear prose.) [ADDED: I was wrong to take out the commas, as explained here.]

"Women Who Like Alpha Males" — a challenging phrase. It gets capitalized, unlike "angry women," the set of women that aligns with Hillary in Adams's vision. Adams hypothesizes women (or maybe only Hillary-supporting women) splitting 50-50 between the "angry women" and the "Women Who Like Alpha Males." That's cartoonish. But Adams is a cartoonist! He's allowed. You have to take some liberties to be this interesting and funny and concise.

I could bore you by positing a continuum from abject subordination to outright man-hating and giving nuanced descriptions of the real women in the center who look at particular men and form individualized opinions. But that sentence suffices.

Scott Adams - alpha males are going to vote for trump. The implication -- if you are a male and not going to vote for Trump, maybe you are a pajama boy and not an alpha male. Hard to imagine Romney going for that approach, which is why this election is going to be so much fun.

As a rhetorical pair, the clearly missing element from the Clinton list is "Alpha Females". Instead Adams balances "Alpha Males" with "angry women". So the cartoonist sees strong women as "angry". You could have a Freudian field day with this.

If this were a poker I see Trump holding a pair of jacks and Clinton holding a straight flush. It's the number of cards that align that matter.

I honestly don't know which is worse, Trump or the people who are supporting him. The way I feel today: When the dust settles from all this, either they're out or I am. The GOP is either the conservative party or it's not, and if it's taken over by the Trump idiots and we can't get it back, conservatives are going to look seriously at abandoning ship.

Trump's move left the Fox News debate as a Kasich v Cruz duo which removed Kasich's opportunity to contrast his Niceness style with Trump's Alpha male style. So Kasich begged off and the Cruz only debate was mercy killed.

It's Angry women, Beta males, African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, Disabled people, and Veterans who were POWs, and last but not least SANE people, who can unite and make sure Trump doesn't ever get to be President of the most powerful country on earth. Either stay home, vote third party or vote for Hillary, do it for your country.

Where does that leave those of us disgusted by both Hillary and Trump? Are we the wandering lumpenproletariat, filled with nihilism and a need to use words like "lumpenproletariat"?

I don't know about Scott's analysis--on the one hand we're being told that Trump appeals to the vast numbers of people who feel like the economy left them behind and they are most vulnerable to it. But that doesn't really sound like "alpha males" who evoke successful captains of industry and dominators of their field. Alpha males by definition would prefer the status quo. Or maybe he means people who want to become alpha males?

Hillary is getting the votes of people who have made peace with corruption and hope it works to their favor somehow.

I think Scott Adams has it right. The proper juxtaposition for Alpha Male is Angry Female, not Alpha Female. Alpha Males and Females cooperate in a social group, they don't compete and their dynamic is the opposite of the underlying proposition of the Angry Female which is victimhood.

Trump appeals to the allies who are looking for a Patton to lead the charge against the axis that is informed by emanations from a penumbra.

No more selective exclusion. No more class warfare. No more alien invasions. No more capital and labor depredation. No more American citizens as second class serfs. No more abortion rites and cannibalistic trials. A separation of cult and state, and revitalization of People and Posterity.

What is it with the Hillary-ites? Do they think that if they don't mention how corrupt & flawed the woman is that we just won't notice? Talk about yer vow of omuerta!

Jeezo-peep, guys, your candidate is under investigation by the FBI. She & her husband made $110 million in 15 years, while the candidate who was the ex-CEO of a Fortune 20 company married to the ex-CEO of a F20 is worth $60M. Money in politics, hello! Her daughter, who can't seem to find her buttcheeks with both hands, goes from six figure job to six job, & in no time at all at a finance firm comes out a multi-millionaire. The Clinton Foundation & audits just don't seem to go together. She gives some of the most loathsome people in DC high-ranking positions in her campaign.

Trump joked about he could shoot a guy on 5th Ave & his supporters would forgive him. For Trump, it's a joke. For Hillary, it's the reality.

"the Cruz only debate was mercy killed" But in a way Cruz debating Cruz, in a Princeton debate-style sort of way, would actually be more fun than anything involving Trump.

"Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American Alpha Males and Women Who Like Alpha Males." No: the identities of Americans who prefer the derivative of the simulacrum of the Alpha Male pose, as in the painting we discussed here not long ago--identities that have about as much substance as the coursework at Trump U.

I honestly don't know which is worse, Trump or the people who are supporting him. The way I feel today: When the dust settles from all this, either they're out or I am. The GOP is either the conservative party or it's not, and if it's taken over by the Trump idiots and we can't get it back, conservatives are going to look seriously at abandoning ship.

One conservative is running. The establishment HATES that guy.

The establishment wants to be Democrat-lite. Who wants that? Not voters, based on recent electoral history.

"Bimbo. Dog. Fat pig. These are just a few of the things Donald Trump has called women. And the big political ad making waves this week in the 2016 presidential primary, featuring Trump quotes recited by women on screen, didn't leave it there.

A full 60 seconds elapse of horrifying, misogynist nonsense, and as of Tuesday afternoon, more than a million people had viewed the ad on YouTube alone. If you're a woman who doesn't know how she feels about Donald Trump, the ad leaves no question how Trump feels about you.

In the last Quinnipiac national poll, Clinton pulled in 44 percent of female voters, while both Rubio and Kasich won 45 percent. She opens up a bit of a lead among women against Ted Cruz, but she defeats Trump among women by nine points.

Most female voters are not in a persuadable place on Trump. Only a third of women had a favorable view of Trump in that February Quinnipiac poll; four out of ten Republican women have a strongly unfavorable view of Trump.

Clearly you're not a manly man if you're male and you don't support Trump. Only some beta male weakling would date support Cruz. Real men talk loudly, insult people, call everyone who disagrees with them "losers" and "failures", switch positions on major issues at the age of 70, and (most importantly) have orange complexions.

5. But with all this heavy lifting over decades, the Haves have become a little complacent, and the Alpha Males, a little tired.

6. So, now the country faces the hordes of Nots and Beta Males who want to undo the American success story, and remake it in their own weaker image.

7. And, The Donald, a big Have/Alpha Male, has captured the minds of a mixture of Alpha Males, and Nots, who want to become Haves. These folks want to stop the steady slide of the USA into a morass of Nots, running the show and wrecking things.

Anyway, that's my theory, and I'm sticking to it -- don't disturb me with the facts:)

"Get Carol Roszka talking about why she does not want Hillary Clinton in the White House, and it is hard to get her to stop. Roszka vents about how Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi attacks was disgraceful, her feminism is phony and her ambition is off-putting.

Yet Roszka says when she votes in November, it will very likely be for Clinton.

Donald Trump has driven her to it. “I do not want Trump under any circumstances,” she said of the New York billionaire who looks headed to appear on the ballot alongside Clinton, after both candidates won a round of key states Tuesday. “So much so that I will not vote for the Republican Party at all if he runs.” Roszka is part of what you might call Clinton’s coalition of the unwilling. They are the independent and moderate Republican women who don’t like Clinton – some even despise her – but are so repulsed by Trump that they are already preparing to vote for the Democrat they anticipate will be on the ballot in November if that’s what it takes to keep him out of office. Either that, or sit out the election altogether.

Trump has endorsed the forced internment of innocent Americans against all their due process rights, has said he'll order the military to commit war crimes, will order the killing of the children of terrorists, says he'll "open up" libel laws...

I mean at some point don't his supporters say, "Wait a second?"

Obama issues EOs not to enforce immigration laws and they're outraged. Trump says the above and move and they yawn.

In all the mainstream Media coverage of Rubio dropping out you've heard over the last 18 hours or so how many times has the word "immigration" come up? How about "Gang of 8?"It is bizarre! The lengths the Media will go to intentionally miss the point is really odd.

Professor,You're usually spot-on with grammar and punctuation questions, but I think you erred this time in removing the commas in the Scott Adams statement. I believe Adams is using Oxford commas to delineate three distinct "identities" -- American[s], Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. I believe Adams erred in leaving off the "s" in "Americans" and that "Americans" is in contrast to "immigrants," which is one of the identities "owned" by Clinton

Adams quote: "Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities."

Welcome aboard, Mrs. Althouse. When the requirements for respectable speech surpass the rewards, when the signal-to-virtue-signal ratio means we're too sick of it all to even skim the latest respectable magnum opus, we take refuge - liberation - in laconic, playful, evocative doublespeak (c.f. the Irish). Fun is had, telling arguments are made to those able to see them, but the outrageists are left stabbing at octopus ink.

Trump 1992 said (rough recollection) "women ... i've learned you gotta treat 'em like shit" (Playboy interview?). huffpo was trying to drag him for some list of 18 similar such (true) insights but it only plays to the dynamic adams just depicted.

1. social competence and picking your battles - knowing how to not seem delusional - best created by inner courage + integrity, but you can imagine someone feeling a worm inside. "alpha" (which competitive women can certainly be in my view) tries to claim the former - that it's true inner strength. the people who don't respect you though, you imply they're worms who when they're losing start losing social composure and frantically self-soothing and pretending victory

2. niche/fashion statement: there are socially dominant feminists, compsci profs, bar regulars, corporate VPs, etc. most of the awareness of "alpha" has come from lay-lots-of-hot-women and do-what-men-think-is-cool types. that's really still the center of the concept in my mind, but the concept maps to other yardsticks ("believe me, there's no problem") of status

self-identified "alphas" and women who prefer real "alphas" is something like 70% of the vote. "beta" is not bad. angry in-denial "beta" is bad. women who have given up on finding or don't understand the joy of interacting with fun, confident people, may sour-grapes decide they loathe "alphas" in the attractive-manly-man sense, but i'm guessing they still struggle for "alpha" status in their local and net-politics social groups.

Amanda thinks the list of things you "just don't do" has real, official power. Insulting people who attack you where it hurts them, even if they're one of the sacralized classes is something Trump does do and people do allow him. Alpha. Let yourself enjoy it. He's not supposed to do that! But he will. And you're flirting with him, subconsciously, when you see what he does.

I do think it's likely Trump dodged Vietnam, like everyone except McCain and Kerry. Supposedly he had a truly disqualifying bone spur type thing. What are the odds that's legit? 50/50. I'm not terribly interested. HRC and Sanders also dodged Vietnam, unambiguously.

Trump needs a Pajama Boy ad. Something along the lines of Pajama Boy sipping his cocoa with two hands wrapped around a giant mug, in comes a Hillary-like man-woman, she beats the heck out of Pajama Boy with a giant teddy bear, dust off her hands, looks at the camera and says, "I don't need him in more ... he voted early."

As she stands, surveying the wreckage, a voiceover says, "Be a man. Join the Trump army."

"Angry women" are only a small bit of the Hillary! base. The larger cohort is likely those that watch The View and believe that by doing so they become smarter, more cool girl, more in. Much of the prog. movement consists of these people.

Also? I'm pretty sure Hillary didn't try to join the Marines.Also? I'm pretty sure Hillary didn't get a letter from NASA telling her women couldn't ever be astronauts.Also? I'm pretty sure Hillary didn't legitimately make $100k in 10 months trading cattle futures (from an investment of $1k) using her own skill.Also? I'm pretty sure Hillary didn't comply with a subpoena for documents including Rose Law Firm billing records that weren't produced (she said they were lost) but magically appeared 2 years later in the private residence space of the White House.

People who talk about Trump's shady business practices but have never heard of Madison Guaranty are ignorant--the fact that the Media decided that the "Whitewater scandal" was no big deal and that it's "old news anyway" while Trump's dealings from the 1970's are fair game tells you all you need to know about bias.

Basil,If HRC is Imelda, then I want to know who's being lined up to be Ninoy, to get shot getting off a plane in the Capitol. Also, who's gonna be Corazon?Bad times. I was at work in '86 when I heard the lady in the next office (on the phone) saying "Oh, no. Remember what happened to Uncle Ninoy!.

Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males.

With the commas. Adams flunked English evidently.

National politics has been anti-male, especially anti-white male, since the 1960s. If any candidate for any office is a white male, he has an impediment. Being a white male is something you hope the other side will ignore, otherwise you must apologize for your identity -- something along the lines of I may be biologically male, but that doesn't mean I think like one or The fact that my ancestors were Western Europeans does mean I agree with them -- unless you're Jewish. If you're Jewish you don't apologize for being Jewish because it will only inflame the bigotry against you.

Anti-white male bigotry is the only bigotry that won't get you hauled before a PC star chamber, and since it's both fun and psychologically beneficial to be a bigot antianerism (Quaestor coins a necessary word. Anēr is Greek for a male person.) has gone from strength to strength. I wonder how long it will continue to warp and erode our culture.

I wonder. This does not explain lots of people. Consider Alexander the Great.Well known for being "the Great", but not for self-control. The world is messy and there are more things in heaven and earth ... well, you know the rest.

Julius Caesar was well known as an orator with a sophisticated style " he has the purest and the most elegant command of the Roman language of all the orators that have yet appeared""he chiefly acquired and brought it to its present perfection, by a studious application to the most intricate and refined branches of literature, and by a careful and constant attention to the purity of his style."and etc., at some length - - Cicero, "Brutus"

And he could chew out the legionaries like a centurion.

More Alpha than Julius Caesar would be hard. The victor of twenty campaigns and a hundred battles. The man who specialized in deliberately putting his men, and himself, in a desperate situation, for the sake of getting them properly motivated. A thrill seeking gambler who won every time.

Trump will run to the left of Hillary on many issues like trade and getting and staying out of the Middle East. He'll also hammer income inequality resulting from Dem and GOP policies. He'll run to the right of her on illegal immigration (The Wall). He will drive home the point he's trying to protect the jobs and wages of low income legal immigrants and US citizens, and that blacks and Latino Americans are the ones most impacted by legal immigration, along with low income whites.

Trump will also promise to beef up our immigration immigration and visa policies to keep out suspected terrorists and others who aren't coming here "because they love our way of life" but either want to change the country radically or "hate us." While embracing legal immigrantion and praising the "good Muslims" who came here in the 1960s and 1970s and are doctors, lawyers, etc. He will emphasize that radicals target and kill "good Muslims" and we don't want that happening here. The "good Muslims" here will be in the most danger.

He'll have the names of all the Muslims killed in the WTC. He will promise to put in an extensive screening process to let in the "good Muslims" and other legal immigrants who love us and will be "great Americans."

Perhaps you don't want to listen to Hans und Franz, you'd rather vote for a pathetic loser candidate like some kind of limp-wristed girly man... all right, all right, we are not here to cut you down. We are here to Trump You Up!

In another sign of anti-Trump sentiment among some Republicans, across today’s five primaries, just more than half say they’d be satisfied with Trump as the nominee against Hillary Clinton, but about four in 10 say they’d seriously consider a third-party candidate.

Notably, six in 10 non-Trump supporters say they would seriously consider a third party if he became the GOP’s nominee."

Amanda do you seriously believe six out of ten Republicans who didn't vote for or currently support Trump are going to go third party and hand the election to the one candidate they really despise-Hillary the grifter and felonious traitor Clinton?

About 55% of those eligible to vote, actually vote. Right now, 25% of voters identify as Republican and 29% as Democrat, which is an all time low. The rest identify as independent (except the very small percentage who identify as Libertarian Party or Green Party or the handful of other parties no one knows about).

Trump isn't a Republican and Sanders isn't a Democrat. Our two main political parties are weak institutions.

cubanbob-I can't speak for any other Republicans but I will not ever vote for little Donny. I won't vote for Hillary (I haven't voted for Democrat since 1976) but I'll either stay home or cast a protest vote for a third party candidate. I can't stand Donny, can't stand anything about him, and I can't see how a Hillary presidency would be any worse than his.

@cubanbob - it's a poll question and "seriously consider" is a reasonably good answer if you want to express dissatisfaction with Trump. I suspect that a lot of Republican voters will "seriously consider" not bothering to vote, which will also hand the election to Clinton.

Which may or may not be true , Henry except in open primaries democrats, Hispanics and blacks cross over to vote for Trump.And speaking as a classic liberal, I'd rather vote for Trump than have Hillary in the White House. The Clintons had their eight years(you get two for one).

"Ann, by taking out the commas you changed Scott's meaning. In Scott's taxonomy of identities "American" and "alpha male" are two separate things."

First, you can only be referring to the first of the 2 commas I took out.

Second, I think, in one sense, "male" is the noun and "American" and "alpha" are adjectives, which would make putting a comma between "American" and "alpha" the conventional punctuation. But, like you, I see "alpha male" as a single entity, really a noun. Then "American" modifies "alpha male." Taking out the comma makes that clearer. The picture were supposed to have is of one of the alpha males of America. Think of the animal called the American Water Spaniel. You wouldn't even consider writing "American, water spaniel."

There's also: "You're usually spot-on with grammar and punctuation questions, but I think you erred this time in removing the commas in the Scott Adams statement. I believe Adams is using Oxford commas to delineate three distinct "identities" -- American[s], Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. I believe Adams erred in leaving off the "s" in "Americans" and that "Americans" is in contrast to "immigrants," which is one of the identities "owned" by Clinton."

I understand that idea, but I don't think that's what Adams meant to say. He's got 2 groups, not 3. One group is male and the other is female. The males are alpha and the females are the females who love them. There no reason to dump "Americans" into that discussion. And the idea makes so little sense that I'm contemplating whether you're doing humor. If so, I get it.

Of course you wouldn't—because it's an American Water-Spaniel, no? Apply the purple people eater rule: Is it a Water Spaniel that's American or a Spaniel of the American waters?

The confusion only arises when we omit the hyphen: What Adams should have written (and didn't because—my guess—like most writers he's terrified of using it wrong) was "Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American alpha-males, and women who like alpha-males."

Okay, I looked back at the context, and I can see that both of these commenters are making the same point.

"Trump is well on his way to owning the identities of American, Alpha Males, and Women Who Like Alpha Males. Clinton is well on her way to owning the identities of angry women, beta males, immigrants, and disenfranchised minorities."

"American" is one of the identities that Trump "owns." And he owns 2 others: Alpha Males and Women Who Like Alpha Males.

The identities Clinton owns are people who may be American citizens, but they don't have "American" as their identity.

I concede the point. I think you are right, and didn't see it that way before.